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With city inspections and work emails and tweaked backs and packing for vacation and Morning Edition and the whole lot of it.
Chuck it, we said.
And the next thing you know we're wearing wrist bands and deciding which water slides are the scariest and how quickly can we get there.
Actually, at first, it appeared we were going to be a little risk averse.
We won't do the very, very craziest rides, okay, Mama? said Tall One.
And I'd like a life jacket, said Small One.
Say wha?!?!
This is the child who has no pain threshold, no sense of mortality and a keen eye for the extreme.
A life jacket???
But okay.
So we started tenderly. On a lazy-river-kind-of-thing that was, well, boring.
So which water slides are the scariest? And how quickly can we get there?
That's how we spent the rest of the day.
And when we stopped for lunch (which was at 3 o'clock because we could not bring ourselves to stop until we were faint of heart and spirit) we pulled out a map, circled all the things we'd already done and plotted out what we'd hit before nightfall.
On the way home we talked about our favorites and "it turns out," said Small, " that the ones that make you kind of nervous are the best."
And that's the thing about life and waterslides, isn't it?
I mean, parenthood, for one.
Or writing.
Or showing somebody your writing.
Might as well go headfirst down a speed chute.
Whoopin' and hollerin' the whole way....
Hello, Houston.
We have a kitchen.
And when I say a kitchen, I mean:
Indoors.
Running Water.
Refrigeration.
Gas burners worthy of a rocket launch.
And... it's cute, to boot.
Personally, when it comes to creative endeavours I prefer the 2 dimensional kind -- words on paper, that sorta thing. But it does feel good to know that we've pumped a little new life into an old bungalow and we're still upright, speaking to one another and -- ta da -- eating home cooked meals again! Wahooo!!!!!
Best.
Fireworks.
Ever.
I kid you not.
We were out in our canoe on Ladybird Lake.
I had to ride like Cleopatra in the middle of the boat due to my tweaky back.
Hubby and girls paddled and we found ourselves amidst the most spectacular floatilla of canoes, kayaks, inflatable rafts and other seaworthy craft.
Everyone, it seemed, had a glow bracelet or two, a cooler of watermelon and a zest for all things pyrotechnic.
The symphony played.
The cannons blasted.
The wind blew.
It was chilly.
In Texas.
In July.
And then, just as the show began (so close we could smell the sulfur), a train moved over the water behind us.
And stopped.
To watch.
They just shut that baby down and we all sat under the spell of sparks and swishes and booms.
The grand finale went on forever.
And as we turned our boat to paddle home, the engineer blew a long, happy whistle.
Good night....
Goodnight
By Carl Sandburg
Many ways to say good night.
Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
and then go out.
(Read the rest here...)
Now I do.
I was moving a small bench and something went zoing and now I can't put my own shoes on.
Yesterday we were supposed to go to a waterpark with another family for some serious fun.
I hate rollercoasters, but I loooove waterslides.
So I gimped into the car, determined to carry on.
Even though I winced when I shut the door.
Even though one of our friends' daughters had possible pinkeye.
Even though all signs pointed toward postponement.
Fortunately for those of us with rocks in our head, determined to ignore signs, a huge thunderclap sounded as we exited for the park and a deluge began. It was not to be...
We went back to our friends' house and I was tucked into the guest room where I fell sound asleep while the kids wrote an original musical about a gypsy and a wily fox.
The waterpark can wait.
It's me that's a little impatient...
She shares some terrific art, and lots of great photos, and even gives a nod to our upcoming collaboration.
Run -- don't walk -- to check it out....
And when I say lower, think basement.
Like, um, a coupla grocery lists, a few emails with my editor and lots of trips to the library.
Because honestly, I'm already teaching a class that requires a whole lot of critiquing, and the girls are only out of school for a couple of months, and there are popsicles to be eaten. The last thing I need is a constantly-running brain hum:
You are not worth your weight in pencil lead... everyone else in the known universe has written reams this week, except you... time is running out -- all books need to be finished in the next 24 hours... your brain will be mush by September... you'd better review some basic vocabulary words... you'd better review the alphabet.
Nope.
Not gonna go there.
Instead, I just aim low and enjoy any surprises that come my way.
Last summer it was my trip to L.A. for the SCBWI conference that shot my expectations out of the water.
And then a fevered, late-summer writing binge that resulted in my next picture book.
Now, already, I've crushed this season's delusions of nothingness.
Here's how:
I spent most of the past 72 hours with a most extrordinary group of children's writers.
Months ago, nearly 30 of us exchanged manuscripts and started reading.
Friday morning, we gathered at the gracious home of Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith & we barely budged for 3 days.
(Well, okay. Unless you count the grand party thrown at the fabulous, view-happy home of workshoppee Helen Hemphill on Saturday night. We did not suffer...)
Each and every piece was critiqued with meticulous attention, ideas and admiration (and I'm telling you guys, these are some fine, fine budding books.)
Everyone was so interested and interesting, generous, thoughtful, careful, honest.
And everyone was funny, to boot.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only writer who was a little weepy when things broke up on Sunday and we returned to our real lives. I mean, of course. Right?
But here's the beautiful part.
This is my real life.
This is my real community.
These are real people who are real good with real words and generous hearts and I've got them in my real life.
Which is why, instead of coming crashing back down today amidst errands and chores, I'm still floatin'.
(Thanks, Greg, Cyn, Donna, Carmen, Tim, Julie, Helen and all the rest of you amazing voices for a heckuva weekend...)
My elder daughter spotted it on our way out this morning -- first excitedly (because other than evidence of emptied cat bowls, we hardly ever actually see them) and then, as we realized it was lurching and what raccoon in its right mind would be out in the heat of a Texas summer, the excitement tempered and she grew quiet and sad.
My younger daughter began to cry.
She said she was scared although we later determined that she was scared for the raccoon, not of it.
There was much scurrying on our part, to call the wildlife rescue folk and to check in with the neighborhood listserve which has been busy with news of distemper in the coon population.
And sure enough, it was distemper this time around, too.
By this afternoon he had died -- rather quietly and with decidely less chaos than he might've met in a net and cage and bumpy truck.
So that's good.
But still.
When you live in the middle of a city you want the wild things to be seen and to survive.
Raccoon
By Anne Sexton
Coon, why did you come to this dance
with a mask on? Why not the tin man
and his rainbow girl? Why not Racine,
his hair marcelled down to his chest?
(Read the rest here...)
Every single generation of kids needs to learn -- somehow, someway -- about sex.
A million mamas -- mine and now me -- have jumped into the blushy, tittery muck to do the teaching.
A million dads have, too.
A whole heap of questions get asked -- and answered.
A whole heap don't.
Lots of kids think it's gross.
Lots don't.
Some kids already knew it all.
Some didn't.
(Some wish they still didn't.)
A whole heap of mamas feel prepared for all this.
A whole heap don't.
But a whole heap of mamas feel better getting the goods out there on the table, for everyone to know and understand.
A whole heap of kids feel better, too...
It's So Amazing...
isn't it???
We've already been to the library three times since school let out.
My daughters each have their own card, & they nearly buckle under the weight of the tomes they check out.
The big hits so far:
The Amelia books
The Boxcar books
The SOS File
The Pixie Tricks books
Love, Ruby Lavender
Because of Winn Dixie
The Fudge Books
and lots and lots of books about Japan
They're going through a book or two a day.
At this rate, their fingertips are gonna get calloused and their eyesight's gonna go.
I remember my own frayed, paper library card from when I was a kid -- and the stacks of Nancy Drew books I'd bring home to read by flashlight. When we moved to the hinterlands of Wisconsin, there was a BookMobile which is pretty much as close to magic as an automobile can get without turning into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Our experience here is a bit more urban and we've got branches galore to choose from, but the magic still holds.
A library is a great leveler in life; we're all equal in the stacks, each with a heart and mind just aching to be opened. How about making a run up to yours this afternoon?
But it's not what you think.
There's not a newt's eyelash or toadstool to be seen.
Those, apparently, are the stuff of Pell Witches.
(Which is short for Potion-and-Spell. Of course.)
These little gals are Sea Witches, Plant Witches, Water Witches and the like.
A happy, dreamy coven gathered, right now, at my house.
For Witch Camp.
Current activity:
Handbooks, which is no surprise since I'm a word witch.
According to the powers-that-be.
The witches (Ivy, Bellatrix, Pacific, Adilanta and Gail) are debating colors, magic, rules and regulations.
Serious stuff.
Adilanta, who happens to be related to me, seems a little bossy.
Let's hope nobody turns her into a frog.
Later this week, they'll be at the other houses, fashioning wands, cooking and storytelling.
And who knows what other types of magic they'll concoct?
Don't leave any intact egg shells lying around...
Charm Against an Egg Boat
Anonymous
You must break the shell to bits, for fear
The witches should make it a boat, my dear;
For over the sea, away from home,
Far by night the witches roam.
Mr. Murphy?
I'd already been knocked down a notch during the whole 2004 election.
Okay?
I get it.
Goodness is not to be taken for granted.
Change is constant. (Or not, as the unfortunate case may be.)
Bad stuff happens to good people.
I totally didn't need this week's still-no-kitchen-car-suddenly-in-the-sho
I mean, I missed Poetry Friday.
Aaaaaakkkkk!!!
What is this world coming to?
Things better be lookin' up come November.
I'm just sayin'.
With a lot of very good writers.
Very prolific good writers.
Which means I am reading a stack of manuscripts that'd put the phone book to shame.
It is a dizzying array of work -- from picture books to YA -- and we are going to give each one its due in two-and-a-half days of discussion.
Which means I am reading a stack of manuscripts that'd put the phone book to shame -- very carefully.
And what I'm discovering is:
There is no shortness of talent out there.
No derth of original ideas.
No lack of empathy, or lack of intuition, or lack of guts.
What a lucky world that all these folk put pen to paper when there were so many other things they could have done...
So I found what I thought was the perfect answer to their wishes --
a little rhyme by Ralph Waldo Emerson that goes like this:
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
That pretty much covers the bases, I think.
Plus, it rhymes so it's easy to memorize.
And it's short so nobody'll get hungry waiting.
But here's the thing.
As we recited it tonight -- a few times to get it good & sticky in our brains -- I heard my small one carefully substituting phrases from my next picture book.
(Which is in rhyme, coincidentally, so is easy to memorize.
And is short, so nobody's going hungry while waiting.)
Her sister and dad heard her, too.
And before long it had been decided --
Ralph Waldo out (beloved though you may be), Mama in (biased though they may be).
I feel a little funny being the pen behind our dinnertime blessing but it made everyone else kind of blushy-happy, so I'm going along with it for now. Until someone decides we oughta switch to the old ditty 'bout the appleseed...
Yesterday, I closed my post with a note of gratitude.
So I figured, what better place to start today?
The thing about kindnesses is that they can be complicated...
when they come with strings attached and what not.
And then the subsequent gratitude gets a little murky, too.
Sometimes a bit begrudging or embarrassed. Y'know?
I prefer the pure kind -- of kindnesses and gratitudes.
Pure, unfettered giving and receiving and thank you thank you thank you.
Like that.
No big white elephant in the middle of the room.
Just you.
And me.
And thank you.
Here's what Louise Gluck has to say about all that:
Gratitude
Do not think I am not grateful for your small
kindness to me.
I like small kindnesses.
(Read the rest here.)
And on the days I'm not asking, I tend to accept help when it is offered.
When, for instance, my best chums say that they will take turns delivering dinner once a week while we are without a kitchen?
I say, um, yes.
And when my kids are at a neighbors all morning and they offer to keep them all afternoon?
I say yes.
Dogsitting?
Yes.
Advice?
Yes.
Get out of jail free?
Yes, thank you.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And then, at two a.m., the voices in my head (who are all sort of pull yourself up by your own dang bootstraps kinda folk) say to me:
How ya gonna make good on this, Missy?
How ya gonna pay these people back?
And they sit there sneering, the voices, waiting for the paroxysms of guilt and shame.
And I teeter.
And they sneer and twitter with anticipation.
And I waver.
And they are lovin' this!
"Look at her," they say. "Needy and wobbly as a two-legged stool."
And that is when I plant my third leg firmly on the ground --
this is a benefit of yoga, my friends (third eye, third leg, all sorts of extras that balance and enrich) --
firmly on the ground, I plant it.
And I say, "I am not going to pay these people back. Their gifts are not about me. Their gifts are reflective of them. They are just good folk. I am blessed and surrounded by a hundred very fine friends with open hearts. And sometimes when you are faced with open heartedness, it's best to be open handed. That is the third leg of the stool called love. Tomorrow, it is my turn. Tomorrow, I will offer my ear to the person who needs to talk, my car to the person who needs a ride, my bag of pecans to the squirrels. And in the meantime? I will say thank you."
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think it's sort of appalling how much 80s music is still alive in my head; I don't want to feed the beast by talking about it.
Ditto -- bad haircuts, bad habits and most embarrassing memories.
But the lovely Jen Robinson tagged me to talk about summer goals, and since it is nearly one hundred degrees here in the heart o' Texas, it seems like the appropriate time to give it a thought.
Numero uno:
My top priority this summer is to put down the laptop and step away from the overwhelm.
I want to be present and joyful with my kids and my husband, my family and my friends, and myself.
I want to swim.
A lot.
Nap.
Quite frequently.
Read.
A ton.
Blog.
A bit.
Talk.
Freely.
Listen.
Carefully.
I want to single- rather than multi-task, say no when I need to and yes when I want to, and generally enjoy the fact that I have the health and the time and the privelege to take it down a notch this season.
Numero dos:
I'm only teaching one class this summer.
It's online, and I want to enjoy it.
I want to wallow in my students' evolving work, share with them what I'm able to share, and try to convey the joy of poetry as viscerally as the nuts & bolts of the craft.
Tres:
Since Jen called me out specifically in regards to exercise, I'd better rise to the occasion.
This summer I want to keep my mileage up and running shoes handy, I want to take my yoga practice with me on vacation, and I want to swim. Pretty much every day. That's the plan.
Quatro:
Read, read, read.
The novels on my bedside table and then some.
Plenty of good adult fodder but also, like last summer, I want to read any of the big award winners I haven't gotten to yet.
And I'm starting at the library.
Tonight.
Now then.
If you want to put a little thought into your summer, consider yourself tagged!
or the thing we do think of is not quite right...
or we don't have the time to do justice to all that needs saying.
Because really, is there ever enough time to do it all justice or get it quite right?
Caedmon
-- Denise Levertov
My tall one finishes 3rd grade today.
She made her teacher a card that said:
We had a great year and a great relationship.
Which is true, and I just think it's a beautiful thing that she knows that.
My small one finishes 1st grade today.
She's already talking about the school-type work she plans to do over the summer.
Journaling. Reading. Higher math.
She's kind of an overachiever, but still... I'll believe it when I see it.
It is summer, after all.
I have very vivid memories of my own summer vacations as a kid.
Cousins.
Swimming.
Horseback riding.
Waterskiing.
Kick the can.
Rag tag.
Popsicles.
Rootbeer.
A thick smear of zinc oxide on my nose.
There were no bedtimes and no alarm clocks.
Time was virtually suspended for three months and then, suddenly, come the first of September, I was older.
Not a day older -- a whole grade older.
A whole new set of rules and expectations, priveleges and opportunties.
A whole new me.
Which is where my girls are going to find themselves in a few months, in 2nd and 4th grades with the rest of the big kids.
It nearly brings me to my knees with nostalgia and the dizzying speed of it all.
Fortunately, though, as of 3 o'clock this afternoon we are in that nebulous land where clocks and calendars cease to matter and there's nothing much to do but catch caterpillars, paint rocks and shake the sand out of our bathing suits.
We'll deal with that growing up business all in good time...
No biggie.
A drive rather than a flight.
A home rather than a hotel.
Bathing suits rather than, well, clothes.
The kids had kids to play with.
The dog had dogs to play with.
We had grown ups to play with.
(...and discuss candidates and delegates with, and schools and sports and religion and grandmothers and art.)
We enjoyed a yard.
A pool.
An actual kitchen.
I could feel myself wind down at the cellular level.
And when that happens, the mind unravels.
I mean, in a good way.
All the everyday knots and plans and preconceptions spread out into a sort of marshy meadow.
Idea-ready.
It was a quirky little slip of the tongue -- in the midst of one of our quirky little conversations -- but there it was.
Just ripe for the taking.
A word.
That could be name.
That could be a character.
I'm trying to maintain a little marsh state here, to see where it takes me...
a pictorial view of our school's literacy parade.
Poetry in pictures, to my mind.
I mean, c'mon people.
Floats based on books???
As for today, we are ready for vacation at our house.
This is the first year our school year has stretched into June and it's killin' us.
Here's what my small one has to say about it, and don't tell me she's alone in this:
School
I sit there in
a dark blue chair
listening to directions
But in my little
tiny head
I wish I was
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